Come on, skinny love, just last the year
by SameStars
Summary: "Phil loves things with an intensity that shines brightly above everything else. The first time Phil tells him that he loves him it breaks Dan's heart almost immediately."


**Title: **Come on, skinny love, just last the year

**Summary: **"Phil loves things with an intensity that shines brightly above everything else. The first time Phil tells him that he loves him it breaks Dan's heart almost immediately."

"_Have you ever had one of those days where nothing at all that monumental happens but by the end of it you have no idea who you are anymore?"_

The dowdy bar is buzzing with the kind of alcohol driven chatter that either lifts you up or pulls you down and as Dan yet again traces another lifeline in the wooden table with his finger, there isn't a single doubt in his mind how it's affecting him tonight. He'd fallen through the door of Phil's apartment just hours prior, cursing the freezing autumn rain, his never-ending lectures and the exhausting arguments about a group project he stopped caring about long ago and exclaimed that he wanted nothing more than to raid Phil's fridge and have a movie marathon. He was too busy ranting and peeling off a variety of soaked items of clothing to pick up on the annoyance radiating from Phil.

"You forgot, didn't you?"

It's all he needs to connect the dots in his head. Phil's uni friends being in town, the ones who had supposedly wanted to meet the mysterious new friend who more or less lived with Phil now, and a promise of meeting those people who knew Phil long before Dan did and therefore has a head start Dan will never fully overcome. It had been foul play by Phil, to ask that of him in the middle of the night while they were sharing the limited space of Phil's bed, because that's apparently something Phil does with friends and that's what Dan is and it's all that he is – Phil's friend. In a list of things that defines Dan Howell it's third only after "human" and "alive". And he's not even sure about the second one.

The way Phil keeps pulling him into the conversations with words or little nudges of his elbow makes Dan want to get up and leave the bar right there and then. And then when he doesn't, when he gets lost in a discussion and doesn't see how Dan's drowning because this would feel overwhelming even on a day that wasn't the worst he's had in weeks, then the urge to just find an out gets even stronger. The conversation taking place between Phil and someone whose name Dan has already forgotten has turned into a drunken and heated philosophical one about being all too logical and losing the ability to dream and fly and create.

"In your world two plus two equals four." he hears Phil spit at the other, and it's the deepest of insults coming from Phil. In Phil's world nothing is as simple or boring as that. Two plus two doesn't necessarily equal anything in Phil's world – and most certainly not four – and it's what Dan loves and hates about Phil. It's what makes being Phil's friend such a wonderful thing, but it's also what makes Dan want to kick and scream and get through Phil's head that not everyone can push past all the trivialities of everyday life and live the life they dream of. More than anything it makes him utterly petrified that Phil will one day open his eyes to see that Dan is just a painfully ordinary nineteen year old, living irreversibly stuck between law textbooks and a sense of nothingness.

"I've missed you."

Phil flops down next to him, having left Dan to have a staggering conversation about uni with someone whose whole body language had screamed "unimpressed". It feels like he's a product that has been oversold, and now he's being examined and deemed to not being worth the wait. Phil smells of smoke and alcohol in a combination much more intoxicating than anything Dan's drunk so far this evening.

"What, in the ten minutes you were gone?"

"No." He laughs like it's the funniest thing he's heard all night. "In general. You've been distant."

"Have I?"

"Yep. Can't figure out why though."

"Maybe if we weren't in this shitty bar with a bunch of people who really can't figure out why you're friends with me I would tell you."

"Would you?"

"Probably not."

Phil loves things with an intensity that shines brightly above everything else. Dan does too, but very differently. While his love is a quiet one, directed towards a selected few, Phil's an outspoken one and it's divided between a million little things. It should make it less special, less strong when fragmented in so many pieces, but just like two plus two doesn't equal four in Phil's world, breaking down his love into tiny fragments doesn't make it smaller. The first time Phil tells him that he loves him it breaks Dan's heart almost immediately. It's yet again another night they're spending sharing words that are too blunt for daylight in the recess of Phil's bed. In a conversation about keeping the hopelessness at arm's length, as Phil seems to be an expert of, he says it like it's the simplest thing in the world.

"There's just so much I love. I'm in love with that book I read last week. I'm in love with you... I'm in love in not knowing what's next for me in life."

In the almost cruel pause between the two last statements Dan reaches out to place his hand on top of Phil's on the sheets. He withdraws like he's been burned once the statement is completed. Phil loves him like he loves a poem, he loves him like he loves a song that he vows to never stop listening to on repeat but eventually will. Phil loves with intensity, but his love flickers and dies only to resurrect somewhere entirely different shortly after.

Phil's not a tattoo person, he says so himself. There's nothing he knows he'll still love in one year, in ten, in a lifetime from now.

Before they say their goodbyes and walk home through the night, they'll be asked how long they've been together. Dan won't even have time to open his mouth to correct him a little too sharply, because things like this make him think that he's not completely crazy, other people see that connection he fancy being there as well and it's a realisation that makes everything a little harder for him. But Phil bursting out in a loud laugh will beat him to it, and it feels like something's trying to claw its way out of Dan's chest then. Phil's not a tattoo person Dan has to remind himself when they crawl into the same bed. Close, but nowhere near as close as Dan's aching to be. But Dan would like to be a permanent ink scribbling across Phil's chest and he'd want Phil to love it with the intensity of all his little loves combined.


End file.
